Book by Craig Lucas, music by Daniel Messé and lyrics by Nathan Tysen
Directed by Tony Award winner Pam MacKinnon

NEW YORK CITY | Maybe it would have helped if Broadway’s AMELIÉ, A NEW MUSICAL was produced at Lincoln Center Theater. This gorgeously and cleverly revisionist musical just announced that it is closing its commercial run.

The new Broadway production will play its final performance on Sunday, May 21, 2017 after playing 27 preview and 56 regular performances at the Walter Kerr Theatre (219 West 48th Street).

Directed by Tony Award winner Pam MacKinnon (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), with a book by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award nominee Craig Lucas (The Light in the Piazza), music by Daniel Messé and lyrics by Nathan Tysen & Messé, AMÉLIE, A NEW MUSICAL began performances on March 9, 2017 and officially opened on April 3, 2017.

Broadway’s AMELIÉ, A NEW MUSICAL is a delight. The director, Tony Award winner Pam MacKinnon, managed to re-vivify the original film’s narrative content. Anybody with an ounce of sensitivity to craft can spot the virtues of the nimble book by Tony Award nominee Craig Lucas, the lovely music by Daniel Messé and the well-written lyrics by Nathan Tysen.

More, this new musical centers on the singing glories of Tony nominee Phillipa Soo, who portrays the eponymous lead role, and Adam Chanler-Berat (known elsewhere for NEXT TO NORMAL). Soo anchors this show. Does she and her beautiful voice not deserve an early theater award nomination just for being perfect for the past?

On Broadway, the quiet hope is that AMELIÉ’s quirky creative vision might bode better once the rest of the spring theater awards season gets underway. But it’s possible that a different venue — like Lincoln Center Theater — could have extended its berth. This musical, you see, offers an alternative to the brassy commercial kinds that loiter Broadway. Upon seeing it, noting that Craig Lucas write the book, I thought to myself, has the lightsome air of LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, for which Lucas also wrote the book. The show did emerge from the nonprofit scene as well.

“It has been an honor and privilege to work with the brilliant, talented team of writers, actors and creatives who have brought AMÉLIE to life for the past two years, from Berkeley Rep, to Center Theatre Group, to Broadway. We’d like to express our gratitude to all of them, as well as the audiences who have shared the experience with them and with us,” said the show’s producers.

Some good news though: The original Broadway Cast Recording for AMÉLIE, A NEW MUSICAL will be released by a new imprint of the Warner Music Group, and will be available digitally on Friday, May 19, 2017 and in-stores on Friday, June 9, 2017. The original cast album is now available for pre-order at w.lnk.to/amelie.